Warped (15 page)

The echoing was no different. But when she was little, she’d always thought the echoes in the studio made it sound big and important. Now it just sounded empty. The smells were still there too: the sharp whiffs of oil and varnish and turpentine and, more faintly, the hint of sawdust from the wooden frames her mother had made. They were stacked in the corner with their taut skins of canvas stretched tight. Waiting. All waiting.

“My father never comes up here,” Tessa said. “It will be okay,” she added under her breath. She tried to keep her eyes forward as she strode to the middle of the room, but they were drawn, as if by an invisible summons, to the dusty, half-finished paintings that lined the walls. She took in the colors laid down in confident, swirling strokes. An elegant line swept a weeping willow branch over shadowed water. A roughly sketched portrait caught a young girl on a swing in midflight. With a start, Tessa recognized herself as the little girl and tried to remember that moment in the air, with her mother watching her. She found she couldn’t. Tessa took a deep breath, or tried to. The air didn’t seem to go all the way in.

“You can sleep there.” She pointed to a sagging couch in the corner, draped with a crocheted granny-square afghan. “I’ll bring over some more blankets and a pillow. There’s a bathroom with a shower back there,” she added with a nod toward the back of the studio. She ignored Will’s perplexed expression, turned away and unlocked the window. She needed air. The wooden frame screeched as Tessa pulled it up and a fresh, sharp breeze blew in. But somehow the cool air wasn’t enough to ease the tightness that had taken hold in her chest. A sudden eddy of wind lifted a sketch on the drafting table nearby. It rolled over on itself and tumbled to the floor.

She shouldn’t have been there. Not there, among all her mother’s things. It felt as if her mother might walk in at any moment. But that was impossible; she was gone. The pain in Tessa’s heart swelled up and throbbed in her chest, in her throat, as if it would burst out of her.

“Tessa. What is wrong?”

She didn’t answer but brushed past Will, ran to the door and pounded down the stairs. She didn’t look back.

Gray Lily let out a shriveled sigh at the sight of herself in the mirror. “Rejuvenating cream my ass,” she muttered, and hurled a jar of expensive facial cream into the trash. She tapped her bony fingers on the bureau. A selection of hairpieces, lotions and cosmetics was strewn before her. “None of this helps. Fine clothes look ridiculous on old bones. I’m decrepit. Practically decaying in Givenchy.”

She turned to Moncrieff, who sat at a desk some feet away. His stubby fingers wielded a computer mouse as he selected the Transfer Funds option from Lila Gerome’s online banking portfolio.

“I need the unicorn back, Moncrieff. Now.”

“Yes,” said Moncrieff absently, typing in a dollar amount that would cover the cost of running a small city for a year.

“Yes,
what
?” snapped Gray Lily, twisting to face him.

Moncrieff stiffened. “Yes,
my lady,
” he said, immediately swiveling the chair toward her and dropping his head to his chest. His heavy blue eyes fixed on a spot on the carpet near her feet. His employer preferred this old-fashioned form of address.

“You mustn’t forget your manners.” Gray Lily’s voice creaked. “I would think your most recent lesson would be fresh in your mind.”

Moncrieff made no reply but swallowed reflexively, and nodded. His posture of obedience seemed to mollify Gray Lily, and she went on.

“This girl,” she said, turning to look into the mirror once more. “Was there anything unusual about her?”

“No,” Moncrieff replied. “Just a girl.” But he frowned, and his blue eyes took on a distant look, as though there was something about Brody’s daughter that had puzzled him.

“But you think she was lying about the tapestry,” Gray Lily pressed.

“She was lying,” Moncrieff answered. “I’m sure of it.”

Gray Lily’s small black eyes slid in the mirror to watch him. “Then she must be the one. She must have released the unicorn somehow. My unicorn.”

Moncrieff’s fingers hesitated over the keyboard for a split second, but then he continued, completing the transaction and clicking the window on the computer screen closed. The screen saver popped up—a postcard-type scene of an English castle on a green hillside.

“Yes, my lady. I’m sure she’s responsible.” Moncrieff stood. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. For now,” said Gray Lily. She picked up a velvet pouch and opened it, withdrawing a thick green thread from inside. She held it in her palm and stroked it as if it were a pet. “She wants to keep it, does she?” Gray Lily’s eyes glittered. “I’ll simply send her a visitor.” She chuckled. “She won’t be able to get rid of my tapestry fast enough. I almost feel sorry for the little snippet.”

Chapter 22

S
he’d never even shown him how to work the shower. Or the toilet. Well, too bad. Mr. Hard Constitution would have to figure out the miracle of indoor plumbing on his own. Tessa swung the door of her room shut behind her and leaned against the solid support with an exhausted sigh. She wondered what Will de Chaucy had made of her disappearing act. She’d run out of there as if Hannibal Lecter were chasing her with a bottle of A.1. sauce.

Letting him stay in her mother’s old studio was probably a mistake. Tessa realized that now. Still, it was the best she could do for the moment. She flopped onto her bed and rolled to her back, cushioned and half cocooned in the soft thickness of her comforter as she stared up at the ceiling. So much for control freak.
More like out-of-control freak
. The studio had brought back so many memories. Good memories. But it was strange how good memories could make you feel like . . . well, puking.

Tessa frowned and let her eyes wander over the tiny imperfections of the plaster overhead. Would her mother have resented Will’s staying up in the studio? No. Wendy Brody might have been artsy and full of flaky whimsy, but when it came to people, she was practical. It was Tessa’s father who kept the studio locked up and unused. He never talked about it. Maybe he had the idea that leaving it untouched would make it into a kind of shrine. But neglect, Tessa thought, recalling the dusty room, had made it look more like a crypt.

With a sigh Tessa hauled herself up and went to her desk. She opened a bottom drawer and rummaged inside until she found what she was looking for. She lifted up a small book bound in red leather and turned it over in her hands. It was her first, last and only journal. Tessa sat back down on the edge of the bed.

She opened the book. Its spine creaked with stiffness, and the clean white pages fanned beneath her fingers. It was beautiful, lined in the front and back with paper whose intricate pattern looked like peacocks’ tails. Her mother had given it to her for Christmas two years before she died. It was so pretty, Tessa had been afraid to write in it.

Until one day (a cold, gray day, Tessa remembered) she had grabbed a thick black permanent marker and scrawled inside:

My name is Tessa Brody. This is my journal. I never kept a journal before. I don’t think happy people write things down so much.

Tessa took a deep breath and kept reading. The smudgy writing was uneven, and ink had bled through the pages in spots. It was hard to read.

My mother’s funeral was today at Culway Funeral Home. I can still smell all the roses—they were disgusting. I never want to see another rose. I have a lot to say but can’t say any of it to the people I want to say it to. First of all, I really miss her already, but none of this seems real. Please don’t let it be real.

Do you know what the worst part is? Life goes on. Aunt Peggy said that to me. “Life goes on, Tessa.” I wanted to hit her. Hit her hard and make her nose bleed and break her glasses. Life goes on. That is so ugly and wrong.

Aunt Peggy was her mother’s older sister and looked a little bit like her, tall with straight, flyaway blond hair and wide blue eyes. But where her mother’s face had been full and dimpled, Aunt Peggy’s was thin, with pulled-down wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and deep worry lines on her forehead. On the day of the funeral Aunt Peggy had said lots of helpful things. Everyone was relieved when she left.

Life should stop. Just for a little while, at least. I hate when I turn on the TV and the news is telling people what the weather is going to be and what the traffic is like on 95. People are going places and meeting in restaurants and planning vacations and shopping.

It’s like Mom was never even here.

I think when somebody as special as her dies, everything should stop for a little while. But nothing does.

I want everything to stop.

Tessa still remembered that feeling she had right after they had told her. Her whole life suddenly became a blur. People came and went, conversations drifted past her, over her. The questions, the concerns. The talk. How badly she had wanted everything to stop so she could go back, fix things. But life never stops long enough for you to figure things out, never mind fix them. She knew that now.

Tessa closed the book. That was all she had written. All she had ever written or said about her mother’s death to anyone. Until today. With Will.

A faint rustling noise came from under the bed.

Tessa glanced down. “Pie?” She leaned over, hung upside down. She lifted the dust ruffle. In the darkness she caught a glimpse of big, glowing yellow eyes. Tessa sniffed. A dank, wet smell wafted up. Like a dirty fish tank.

Tessa frowned. “Here, Pie. Bad kitty. Come out.”

There was a hiss. A green head shot out, straight at her face.

Tessa screamed and wrenched away, feeling something swipe the top of her head. She rolled herself backward and scrambled to right herself on all fours, just in time to see a monstrous snake slither from beneath the bed. It undulated across the floor, its middle section looking as thick as her leg. Its scales, as big as thumbnails, were yellow, mottled with green. They rippled and rose like flexible armor as it moved.

Tessa let out a frightened whimper and sprang up to stand on her bed. The snake coiled around the base of a nearby floor lamp and then, slowly, rose up the pole. The head turned toward her and hung in midair, nearly at a level with her own. A thin red blade of a tongue flicked. Two black-slitted eyes watched her.

A shudder started at the top of Tessa’s head and rattled down to her toes. Tessa tried to think. She couldn’t get out. Getting to the door would put her within striking distance of the snake. She felt another scream begin in the back of her throat but choked it back. Maybe if she stayed really still, making no sudden moves, it would crawl away.

Slowly, staring at the snake’s head, she reached down and pulled the comforter from the bottom of her bed. She inched it up. At least it was something. A barrier between her and the scaly nightmare. She dipped her gaze to the floor for a second. Swallowed. The rest of the snake was still coming from beneath the bed. How long
was
it, anyway?
Just stay still. Don’t startle it
.

“Yeah,” Tessa reasoned under her breath. “You’re probably more scared of me than I am of—”

The snake lunged. Fangs exposed, the pale, ridged flesh of its open mouth gaped and flew toward her. Tessa flung one end of the comforter up. The snake’s head bulleted into it, its fangs sinking into the fabric. Tessa fell backward, tumbling off the bed. The lamp crashed to the floor.

Tessa hung on to the thick material, trying to contain the snake’s thrashing head. The comforter slipped and her fingers grabbed cool, writhing skin. “Ugh!” she screamed, and heaved the tangle of snake and flowery fabric away from her. Without thinking, she jumped down hard on the comforter and stomped on the wriggling mass. She grabbed the first thing that came to hand: her tennis racket. She turned it on edge and with a choked cry raised it and chopped down hard where she thought the head must be. She felt the metal racket frame connect with a grisly crunch. The foul, dank smell filled the air again, only stronger. The twisted shape on the floor was still.

Tessa leapt to the door, opened it and launched herself into the hallway and down the stairs.

Chapter 23

S
he bolted down the stairs but stopped short, nearly crashing into her father.

Tessa blurted out the words between gasps. “Dad. Snake. Up there.”

“Tessa, hold on. Calm down.” He looked into her face. “Is that what the noise was? I thought the ceiling was going to fall on my head.”

Wordlessly, Tessa jabbed a finger upstairs. “Big snake,” she repeated finally. She closed her eyes and shivered as she pictured it. Her stomach pitched. She would have to burn that comforter.

Tessa opened her eyes to see her father watching her with a perplexed look. “What do you mean? Like a garden snake?” he asked. “How the heck would a snake get up there? Let me take a look,” he said, heading up.

“No!” Tessa grabbed him and hung on. “I hit it with my tennis racket. But I don’t think—It may not be dead.”

“We’ll see,” he said, gently disengaging her fingers.

Tessa crept behind her father as he climbed the stairs. He opened the door to her bedroom. Inside, the rumpled bedcover lay on the floor, motionless. He stepped forward and prodded the mess with the toe of his shoe. “Under here?”

“Yes, be careful,” said Tessa. She cast her eyes over every inch of the floor, watching for any movement. But the room seemed empty, still.

Her father picked up one edge of the flowered coverlet. With a quick jerk he snatched it back. The floor was empty.

Tessa shook her head in disbelief. “It’s gone,” she murmured. No way could it have slid under the door. It was too big. “I’ll check under the bed,” her father said, hunching over.

“No!” Tessa grabbed him. The tapestry, she thought, with a sudden sureness. The snake had come out of the tapestry. And now it was gone. She could sense it.